Tools & Delivery

Jammer's Review

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

"Whispers"

Air date: 2/7/1994
Written by Paul Robert Coyle
Directed by Les Landau

Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan

O'Brien returns from a security briefing to find everyone on the station acting strangely toward him. Before long, O'Brien suspects a far-reaching conspiracy that encompasses everyone on DS9 and possibly into Starfleet Command. His suspicions continue to mount as he discovers his activities constantly being monitored, his orders changed without his notification, and station security measures consistently shutting him out of the loop with no explanation or apparent reason.

"Whispers" is an original take on the paranoid thriller, with expert scripting by Paul Robert Coyle, who creates unexpected twists, turns, and revelations that manage to plausibly build a sense that O'Brien is the only remaining individual who hasn't been "gotten to." The first-rate direction by Les Landau evokes a sense of altered reality in every scene, where characters seem to be only slightly different from what they should be, but different enough to seem threatening and to arouse our suspicions alongside O'Brien's.

Told in flashback, the carefully constructed narrative relates the crew's inexplicable half-truths and cover-ups strictly through O'Brien's point of view. In one eerily photographed scene, O'Brien finds himself convinced that food his own wife prepared may be poisoned. Colm Meaney brings his usual credibility to the role, with a textured performance that highlights the character's ability to plan ahead, think on his feet, and attempt to set things right—even in the face of such bleak odds. Once O'Brien escapes the station, he finds what promises to unravel the mystery for us, which is when the story drops the unexpected twist on us: O'Brien is the conspirator—unwittingly—a clone who honestly thinks he's O'Brien but has been programmed as an assassin by an alien government.

The uncovering and death of the clone is unexpectedly tragic and moving—the irony of the old adage that "perhaps it's not everyone else who is wrong, but just you" couldn't be more clear. Other than the slightly dialog-heavy final scene, which feels a bit too much like it was written for the audience's benefit, this is a superbly envisioned episode that ranks among the most deftly constructed mysteries on Trek. The way the clues play toward the two different perspectives (both the false O'Brien's and the rest of the crew's) is brilliant.

29 comments on this review

Jammer: How could you give "Whispers" 4 stars. Sure it has some interesting
scenes, especially the one where O'Brien thinks that Keiko might have
poisoned his dinner, but there's no payoff, and the clone's death was
hardly moving. I'd give it 2 stars; at best 2 1/2.

I don't understand how you can complain in numerous Voyager reviews that
the shows offer no lasting character development and give "Whispers" four
stars. I'm not arguing whether it was a good show or about Voyager or DS9
at all, I just can't see the consistency. It seems that you're willing to
give DS9 every benefit of the doubt even to give your highest rating to a
show which, based on your VOY reviews, violates one of your most
fundamental tenants of writing.

As a kid who grew up obsessed with Body Snatchers (both versions) and other
50s-60s Cold War paranoia, the beauty of "Whispers" stems from how deftly
the episode turns the classic 'Paranoid Conspiracy' on its head. Given a
lifetime of THEY'RE OUT TO GET YOU! reinforcement, I admit that I didn't
see the end coming until the very last minute. Of course it was a
conspiracy! Of course O'Brien was the normal one! Oops, guess not.
Brilliant.

Elliott, I don't think Jammer has ever said that an episode must have
lasting character development to be compelling. Nor that every single
episode in a series must be dedicated to that development in order to be
effective.

I think this one was a good character-developer for O'Brien--or a
character-illuminator, at least.

Though the protagonist, in the end, isn't really O'Brien, he's an
accurate-enough copy that both he and we think he is. He *is* acting as
O'Brien would under the circumstances (presumably the difference he was
made for awaits a trigger that never comes). The end should be moving; in
some sense, we *have* seen the man we knew harried to a baffling death as
he tried to do the right thing. The nature of his last moments' realization
is his only "independent" life, and it only adds to the pathos.

From then on in the series, when "our" O'Brien appears, we know he's the
man who *would* have done that...

Solid episode. My only complaint is the final line where O'Brien's clone
mutter's something about his love for Keiko right before he died. It just
wasn't well executed. (Also, killing him in the first place seems a bit
harsh. Do these aliens not have a stun setting?) But good hour of
television over all.

I also agree that not every episode needs to have lasting character
development. DS9 was clearly better on this issue than Voyager, but it
doesn't need to happen every episode.

Mister P, Quark sensed that O'Brien was mocking him and didn't want to just
play into his joke by directly answering him. I probably would have
reacted similar if I were Quark.

Was a promising episode that had me very interested at first. Though by the
end you realize 99% of the drama could have been avoided by the characters
exercising even the slightest common sense (such as, lock the suspected
O'Brien up, and explain to him explicitly what was going on until they
figured things out) but didn't so that the episode could be exciting.

Wow! Great episode, nicely set up, with the twist out of nowhere. It was
also great to see a focus on "O'Brien," the episode does a very good job
showing how he uses his expertise in a variety of ways.

Mister P: I believe it's been shown already that Quark does not have all of
the Rules of Acquisition committed to memory. Maybe he knew the rule, he
just couldn't recall exactly which number it was. Or maybe he just made the
rule up to justify the questions he was asking O'Brien about the Parada.

It was a rather well-done mystery, though given some of what we saw in
other episodes, it occurred to me from the start that Sisko might well have
good reasons for trying to put something over on O'Brien. After seeing some
of Sisko's underhanded dealing with Starfleet and how cleverly he could
subvert the spirit of his orders while following them to the letter, that
he might arrange some distractions to keep O'Brien busy and out of the loop
was entirely believable and consistent with his character.

I do agree that last scene seemed a bit odd. It's tragic enough that
O'Brien is dying for basically doing what he believed to be the right
thing; having him send his last regards to Keiko seemed a bit strained and
over the top, especially considering what would have to be his lingering
doubts that she really was the Keiko he knew and loved.

The whole plot, incidentally, is very similar to Philip K. Dick's short
story "Imposter" in which it turned out the unwitting imposter's
realization that he was an imposter was also the trigger for his hostile
programming (which instantly detonated a nuclear explosion on Earth so
enormous that the last line of the story says it could be seen all the way
to Arcturus). If Sisko or anyone on his staff had ever read that story, it
makes sense that everyone would try to avoid tipping the duplicate O'Brien
off to his condition until they had him either completely subdued or safely
away from the station.

I am in complete agreement with Jammer on this one. There are some minor
flaws, but overall I would say this is one of if not the best stand alone
episodes. Direction and acting are superb and the twist is excellent. The
exposition scene at the end does seem unnecessarily dialogue heavy (we
don't need everything spelled out to us), but that doesn't overshadow the
rest.

Of DS9, I've only seen mostly up to this episode, and while it's not
perfect (some logical fallacies do come into play, such as why they didn't
just jail him if they knew), it offers something that most of DS9 so far,
meaning S1 and S2 episodes for me, don't in that the plot is actually
interesting. There have only been a few other episodes so far with a really
gripping narrative ("Duet" comes to mind), so "Whispers" was appreciated in
that regard. One of the more standout episodes so far.

You might be able to enjoy the episode more if you put yourself in
pseudo-O'Brien's shoes at the end and think about how he feels upon
discovering what he is. Because for all intents and purposes, that was
O'Brien, just his consciousness duplicated in another body, and he died
there.

It's going to take me a while to wrap my head around this, especially the
ending, which I did not see coming at all. I'm not even sure if it works.
But it was an engrossing mystery all the way. Shane is correct--aside from
the mental programming, the duplicate WAS O'Brien. The whole feel of
'Whispers' is a lot like 'Dramatis Personae', in that there's one
sympathetic character who knows something is very wrong on the station and
must figure out alone how to fix it.

This is one of those episodes that is only good the first time you see it.
The "reveal" was pretty darn good, but Bashir just sits there and let's the
clone die. No one seems to care. It IS a human being you know.

God, are you really that dense? Bashir is genetically engineered . He can
immediately tell if someone is saveable just by looking at them and
assessing their vitals. This is why nobody attempts to help Martiza from
his single knife wound either and actually McCoy had the same power. Just
lay a hand on them and "He's dead Jim". They just KNOW these characters are
dead.... :smirk:: because they read it in the script!

I feel like Dusty on this one, I didn't see the ending at all. But, I
thought it was the real O'Brien all the way and there was something wrong
somewhere in the middle, I just couldn't figure out who or what. I ended
up feeling so sorry for clone-Miles. Did they have to kill him?

As for one of the comments above, they couldn't simply lock the false
O'Brien, because they had to wait for his rescue first. Locking him too
early could have meant the death of the true O'Brien held captive
somewhere!

I'm so glad you gave it for 4 stars - as it is probably my favourite DS9
epsiode. After first watching it years ago, I thought 'Wow that was
amazing, but not the best' - but over time... as a standalone episode, it
is easily in my top 5 of ALL Star Trek series.

I think I enjoyed this episode when it first aired, but I was a little
bothered by the complete fake-out at the end. However, that hasn't
bothered me whenever I've re-watched it since. It holds up well even when
you remember what's coming at the end; you're not caught up in the
mystery, but you're having fun watching everyone's actions.

I also feel there was a bit of development for Bashir here. Building on
the previous episode, he's teasing "O'Brien" with a familiarity he didn't
have before.